His Former Self
by BrilliantDarkness
Summary: Often the last memory we have of someone is not how they should be remembered.


William F. Cody sat staring at the words on the paper in front of him as if staring at them long enough would change what was written there. He had gotten the news that morning and it was now long past noon. The shadows were growing longer and the light in his study was growing dim. Soon he would need a lamp to see the words although in truth, he would not because he had read them so many times through the day that he could recite them.

"Willie?" Louisa called cautiously from the doorway hoping to draw her husband out and perhaps persuade him to do what he hadn't done at lunch time: eat. In fact he had been half through breakfast when his eyes hit the news and he had just stood and walked out of the dining room and to his study as if sleepwalking. Louisa had come to see what had troubled him so and in such shock was he at that time that she was able to read the article over his shoulder. Since then he had waved her off and even snapped at her when she came to look in on him. He had not come to lunch and they had called him to dinner a half hour earlier but still she found him in the same place staring at the same article. "Willie?" she called again a little louder.

"Dammit Lulu," he said harshly and she tensed. She knew he could curse of course. He had worked a good many jobs where there were no women around and men were quite free to be as rough as they pleased but he never cursed around her, let alone at her. "I told you I wanted to be alone."

"Co-could I bring you a tray at least?" she squeaked out.

"Get out!" he roared at her and once she had run off crying into her hands he turned once again to the paper in his hands. There was just enough light in the darkening study to allow him to confirm once more that the letters had not rearranged themselves to form different, happier words. They had not. The words were the same. Another brother was gone. The news stated quite plainly that JB Hickok, Jimmy to his friends, James to his wife of only five months and Wild Bill to the rest of the world had been killed. Of course the news went far beyond merely announcing the death, it went as far as to describe the incident in detail. He was not merely dead and he had not merely been killed. This was not a matter of being called out and slowing with age. He had been killed in cold blood. A man had walked up behind him and shot him in the back of the head as he played cards.

Cody ran a hand over his face and shook his head trying to make sense of what he read. No one got the drop on Hickok. At least, no one ever had before. What was more, Jimmy always played with his back to the wall. People did not sneak up on the man because there was no behind to sneak up from. And still somehow this coward shot James Butler Hickok in the back of the head. There was no sense to make of this.

Cody thought about the last time he had seen his friend. He would later downplay the desperate state of his dear friend and say only that he'd invited Jimmy to spend some time in the show and Jimmy, having nothing better to do, agreed. That wasn't really the whole truth. The Jimmy he had asked to join up was not much more than a shadow of the man he had met at Emma's place in Sweetwater. That young man had been so full of piss and vinegar that he had almost beaten Cody himself for attitude. Their friendship had happened effortlessly and naturally as if they had always been friends but had only been waiting to meet. Back then, Jimmy could have threaded a needle with those Colts of his but those days were long gone and when someone called him out he usually wasn't concerned with being delicate in taking the other man out.

The Hickok Cody had seen last didn't have the option of delicacy anymore. His vision was failing to such a degree that keeping peace wasn't an option of employment anymore. Granted great accuracy wasn't required most of the time but the glaucoma had robbed him of nearly everything but the center of his vision. That made it all the more important for him to keep his back to the wall. By the time Cody asked him to join up with the show, gambling was the only way he made money usually and it had seemed his luck or skill or perhaps both had given out for the most part. In fact the money Cody had paid him for his time with the show was gone in a faro game the very next day.

There were bits and pieces of his friend in tact that Cody could ferret out on occasion. Jimmy wasn't a marksman anymore so he played a part in the recreations and more often than not he would anger the other players with small tricks that he would play on them. Cody tried to seem angry but when it came down to it, his heart was warmed a bit that there was still a little of the kid that Jimmy hadn't spent enough time being left within him. One time there were some men who had staked out the pool room in the hotel the show was using and the men were set on fighting with Cody and some of his performers—he did have some very notorious names in his company after all. Cody didn't want a fuss and the hotel manager wanted one even less so Cody had agreed to keep his people out of the pool room. He had tried and he had expressed to Jimmy that he didn't want him in there. Jimmy assured his old friend that he would behave and stay out. Cody should have known he'd never back down from the challenge. It was as if a part of him had gone back to that youth where he felt he had something to prove. And maybe he did feel that. Before he'd been trying to prove that he was a man and not a boy and in these recent years perhaps it was a need to prove he was still a man, still worth something, still a force to be reckoned with.

He still had worried as Jimmy had seemed so lost when they had parted. He tried to fit into Cody's world of show business but it was never meant to be his life and the world that once welcomed Jimmy like a favorite son was out of the reach of the prematurely old man he had become. Not that Jimmy looked old, mind you, but he had trouble seeing and things weighed on him like few who only casually knew him would have guessed. Cody knew that things had always weighed on him. He had always felt like he was atoning for past decisions, or really mistakes. He would always feel the guilt at not having stepped in to help his mother. Telling him he was too young to have made a difference was of absolutely no use. Jimmy would always feel that obligation to step in when someone, especially a woman was being bullied or abused and whatever anyone wanted to say about how ruthless he could be with the gun or his fists, it was never said that he was cruel to a woman or even cruel at all. The weight tugged at him and nothing ever lifted it completely from him. It was a debt he owed someone he could not pay. He regretted so very much and so much of his regret had accumulated before he even truly understood what it was to be a man.

Cody sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a while. It was too dark to discern the words on the paper anymore and he was in no mood at all to bring light to this space. His face felt tight and he knew he must have shed tears through the day although he did not remember having done so. He knew he'd shed more before all was said and done. Cody was not a man ashamed of his feelings as some were. He'd wept for each of his brothers as they had passed and he'd weep for anymore that he might outlive. He didn't expect to outlive Hickok like this though. In fact he had thought that once their lives had settled a bit and men stopped trying to find Jimmy just to earn a name that his friend might just have a chance at that regular life everyone else looked to. Most times he was effective law for a town on reputation alone, well, that and that steely glare of his. Damned few tried to challenge that stare and Jimmy had rarely even had to clear his Colts of their holsters.

Still there had been hope when months back Cody had received word that Jimmy had finally decided to take a wife. Agnes was her name and she had some backbone. She was a widow and ran her own circus as well as performing in it as an equestrienne. Cody had heard Jimmy talk about her from time to time and thought he saw something deeper in Hickok's eyes when he did. There was something special about Agnes. After so many heartbreaks as a youth, Jimmy had refused to let a woman into his heart. He had no quarrel with them finding their way into his bed but he never allowed himself attachments. It seemed his self inflicted penance for having fallen too easily in love before to not allow himself that joy at all. But Cody thought that maybe the letters and brief times they spent together had turned to something more than friendship. This thought was confirmed with the wedding announcement. He really did love Agnes. That much was clear.

For once Cody thought Jimmy would actually settle down and live a life that might make the rest of his days happy ones. And if he had stayed with Agnes, if he hadn't run off to Dakota, maybe he could have known that happiness. Of course, if Cody knew his old friend, and he did, Jimmy didn't ever feel he deserved happiness.

His letter had said that he wanted to earn money to build a better life for himself and his new bride. Cody knew he was trying to prove he deserved the happiness others took for granted. He must have been awfully desperate for that proof to have been in the situation he was in. His back was to the door which it hadn't ever been since he'd accidentally killed that woman and gone to Regrets. It didn't even matter why this coward had shot his friend and as much as he wanted to read of the hanging of the coward, Cody was loathe to even think the man's name. Anyone who would do such a thing was scarcely a man and no longer deserving a name. Even if the man was hanged, it would bring little if any solace to Cody.

Neither was there solace in thinking on the last time he had seen his friend. A man like James Butler Hickok should not have gone out like that. Cody could almost handle that he had died relatively young. A flame that bright wasn't going to burn for as long as an ember might smolder. It was how little was left of him, how lost he had seemed, how sad.

Cody thought back to their illustrious youth. Interestingly enough he didn't think back on shootouts or even the couple of brawls they got into in the saloon. He didn't recall the day that Jimmy decided to show off in front of that writer fella. The heroics were all part of the legend of Wild Bill but all Cody wanted to remember was how it felt to ride into the station and see Jimmy kick that palomino of his into motion and reach for the hand off. And then once it was in his hands, how Jimmy would urge Sundance to full speed and ride off with his hair flying behind him to a call of "ride safe".

The tears renewed as Cody thought to the very last time he saw Jimmy. It was at the hotel the show was staying at. Cody shook Jimmy's hand and then pulled him into a hug that he might have been shy about sharing with anyone other than a brother.

"Ride safe," he had whispered in his old friend's ear. There had been a mist in Jimmy's eyes that he blinked back as he offered a smile.

"Don't I always?"

Years later Cody would pen his memoirs and would be asked to speak of his friendship with the late Wild Bill Hickok. No one would ever hear from his lips or pen the sad state the man had been reduced to. It was not how any man should be remembered but especially not that man. That man had been a true hero and a truer friend than Cody had known before or since.

It was full dark and the house was still. Cody reached into the drawer next to his leg where he kept a glass and a bottle of whiskey. He poured a generous amount of the liquid which shone amber in the moonlight coming through the window. A laugh came to Cody all of a sudden as he thought how much more appropriate it might be to have a sarsaparilla instead but whiskey was what they had graduated to and whiskey would do for tonight.

"Dammit Jimmy," he said sadly to the darkness, "You weren't supposed to go like this. But hell, Noah and Ike weren't either. You deserved a better end but then I suppose most men do."

He paused to glance at the paper that had brought the news to his doorstep and raised the glass high.

"Ride safe my friend."


End file.
